Led Zeppelin book may be final word, unless band writes more

Allentown native releases coffee table book that tells story of iconic rock band through his interviews and others. Book coincides with theatrical and digital release of 2007 reunion concert.

Cover of 'Get The Led Out: How Led Zeppelin Became The Biggest Band… (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO )

January 12, 2013|By John J. Moser, Of The Morning Call

In 2009, TV and radio producer Denny Somach saw the value in a program that disc jockey Carol Miller was doing on New York's classic rock radio station WAXQ-FM, 104.3. She was playing the music of iconic rock band Led Zeppelin interspersed with trivia and tidbits of information.

So Somach helped syndicate "Get the Led Out" nationally, writing and producing it and offering more than 5,000 hours of interviews he conducted and audio content he collected about the band since early in his career at Allentown rock radio station WSAN-AM 1470.

About two years ago, Somach says he realized that even using a minute or two of his material in each show meant the public still never would be exposed to the bulk of it. "The rest of these interviews are really pretty fascinating," says Somach, an Allentown native.

So he decided to put together a book — sort of an oral history, told largely through the recollections of "the people who were there. Have everybody that was there tell their stories [about how they] watched the band start from the ashes of The Yardbirds to where they are today — the biggest band in the world."

That story is told in "Get The Led Out: How Led Zeppelin Became the Biggest Band in the World," (Sterling; $29.95, 256 pp.). The detailed coffee-table tome includes 26 interviews, including interviews with all four members of Led Zeppelin. Somach conducted all of the interviews except for the one with guitarist Jimmy Page.

The book also includes a day-by-day history of the band 1968-1980, commentary on all nine of its albums, photographs of the band, concert posters and rich illustrations.

The forward is by Carol Miller.

The book, released Nov. 6, couldn't have come at a better time, with Led Zeppelin's profile at its highest in years.

There was the Oct. 17 limited theatrical release of "Celebration Day," the documentary film of the 2007 concert at London's 02 stadium that reunited Led Zeppelin's surviving members — singer Robert Plant, Page and bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones — for the first full concert in 27 years, after they disbanded in the wake of drummer John Bonham's death after a day of binge drinking. The concert was a tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun.

The film will have another brief theater run that includes a screening at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown, on Jan. 15. The documentary also was released on DVD, Blu-ray and CD on Nov. 19.

On Dec. 2, Led Zeppelin was among those lauded at the 35th annual Kennedy Center Honors, with the ceremony broadcast on national television Dec. 26. An all-star tribute featured the Foo Fighters on "Rock and Roll," Kid Rock on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and "Ramble On," Lenny Kravitz on "Whole Lotta Love," and Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, with Jason Bonham, son of original drummer John, on drums, in a powerful "Stairway to Heaven."

Somach says he didn't plan the timing. He says the book was scheduled for an August release, but it "got bumped — it took me a little longer to compile it."

"Next thing I know, we're scheduled for November, which is the latest you can really put something out to capture the Christmas season. And sure enough, a couple days after they put the new date for my book out, Led Zeppelin announced the same week that they're going to have this DVD coming out, it will be in movie theaters first, then it will be a DVD, then it will be a CD, then they're going to get the Kennedy Center. ... So it's like one thing after another that's putting Led Zeppelin in the forefront."

Somach says his fascination with Led Zeppelin started with The Yardbirds, the seminal British blues-rock band whose guitarists included Page, as well as Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Zeppelin was formed when all The Yardbirds members except for Page left the group.

Somach says he was on winter break from college in 1968, visiting his grandmother in Pompano Beach, Fla., when the radio station there played the song "Good Times Bad Times" in advance of the release of Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album.

"I remember it to this day, and I just remember going, 'What was that?'" Somach says. "Because, I mean, that's something that you really didn't hear that much of in 1968, '69."

Somach says he was entranced by Zeppelin's musicianship.

"When the album came out, the rest of the album was just unbelievable," he says. "I'd never heard anything like this: 'Dazed and Confused,' 'You Shook Me.' And it was a bunch of blues with unbelievable dynamics. And it had that thing that Jimmy Page said he was always trying to achieve: that light shade. The best example of that on that first album is 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You,' which is an old folk song, but they make it into a killer version.

"So I guess it was just from the first album, I became a fan. And they consistently put out albums, they consistently toured America. They had set their sights on breaking in America, moreso than trying to break into other markets, and that was a smart move.